2023 NCAA DIV II MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP

May 28, 2023

Chris Ryan

Quinn Simonson

Nicholas Mabe

Lincoln Financial Field

Mercyhurst Lakers

Media Conference

Lenoir-Rhyne - 20, Mercyhurst - 5

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Mercyhurst head coach Chris Ryan, student-athletes Quinn Simonson and Nick Mabe. We're going to start with an opening statement from Coach followed by questions for the student-athletes.

CHRIS RYAN: It's always hard to give an opening statement after a loss, but we told the kids in the locker room afterwards it's only a loss if you haven't learned anything by it.

We've always said that -- I know they're extremely disappointed, but what they've accomplished this year has been nothing short of astounding. We are happy to get back to Championship Weekend. It's a place where the program aspires to be. Obviously it didn't turn out the way we wanted, but I don't want this to be the end-all for this team when considering the totality of what they accomplished this year.

I guess I'll turn it over to you two.

Q. This is just for both the players. The journey to get here, how do you kind of encapsulate the entirety of the season and not just today?

NICHOLAS MABE: It's been a long one, to say the least. We're one of the last two teams playing in the NCAA. That was one of our goals, but it's a tough one to lose this last one. It was a good ride. It was a great team to be with.

I'm a graduate student. I came back for a fifth year, and there's a reason I came back. That's all I can say.

QUINN SIMONSON: It was a great journey. I got to do it with some people I care about the most, like these guys are all my brothers. So I'm just happy to have them along for the ride.

Q. The first five, ten minutes or so, I think their pressure got to you a little bit defensively. What was kind of your perspective on that, and just how frustrating was that opening stretch where I think they were out 4-0 before you guys even got a shot off?

NICHOLAS MABE: It was extremely frustrating. I think we let them get to us a little bit more than we wanted to, and it showed.

They've been here before, and we haven't. We let it get to us, and that can't happen. In the end, it showed. Congrats to them. They played a helluva game.

QUINN SIMONSON: Yeah, they really came out ready to play today, and we didn't show up.

THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for the student-athletes? Thank you, gentlemen.

Questions for Coach?

Q. Chris, kind of the same question there. Just them kind of getting after you early, what did you see how that happened and why that happened? And how did that kind of snowball?

CHRIS RYAN: There's times -- first of all, how it happened was Coach Paradine and Lenoir-Rhyne came out with an excellent game plan and out-hustled us. Hat's off to them. Congratulations to the Bears on their first championship.

As a coach, you get in those situations where you're waiting for the game to come back to you. It's like, all right, it's 1-0, it's 2-0. If you just win a face-off and if you get a break here or a break there -- I think once Myles got wide open in front of the net and pulled it wide or they got a check on him at the last second.

So we were just never able to get any kind of momentum going, and they just pushed and pushed and pushed. I also think, building off something that Nick said, the program has been here before. This particular team and the guys on it have not.

A couple of years ago, we ran into Le Moyne in the semis, and I thought we got the very same kind of reaction out of the guys. We just weren't ready for it. And we got the very same reaction we got out of the guys today. It's a building process. You'd like to see it go a lot quicker than maybe it did this year, or today, but I hate to say it, we learned lessons today.

I think from the head coach, the staff down, we learned lessons, and we just got to get better off of this.

Q. Chris, second half you guys come out ball firing, have some great success in the third quarter. What could you guys have done better to keep that momentum going?

QUINN SIMONSON: The first year we went to the National Championship. The following year, we had an off year, and someone asked me, hey, what's the difference between last year and this year? I said, oh, a ground ball here, a post there. It's a game of inches.

You just need to -- you're hoping that you can get some momentum going, but Lenoir-Rhyne had a great way of just answering when we did push a little bit. That's obviously the sign of a championship team. Yeah, we just couldn't sustain any momentum.

To tell you the truth, I just thought -- I thought the lights were a little bright for us today. It's no one's fault. If anything, I'll fall on the sword on that one. That's my job to get the kids ready to play. Again, I just think we've got to learn from this and push forward and get back here.

Hopefully next time we get back here, we're a little bit more prepared to be successful.